I don't think you can say that it has been proven either way scientifically. Classical mechanics assumes everything is deterministic. Quantum doesn't make that assumption, but it doesn't preclude determinism either.
Isn't it rather scary that while scientists are getting excited over this 47 million year old fossil that there are fossils in Congress who will swear on a stack of Bibles that the earth is only 6000 years old and that evolution is bunk.
Frankly, I find it more frightening that most of our leaders and most of the population in general have all bought into the idea that morality is just convention and that there is no higher power to answer to. I suppose they think we're more "evolved" now.
Most slashdotters, maybe. We don't all live off Cheese Poofs and Mountain Dew. Look at the produce section of the grocery store - they don't stock that stuff just to let it rot (like I do when I buy vegetables).
Should we really be including both Windows and iPhone in the same OS usage chart?
Don't complain - including "handheld" OSes may have helped linux to reach 1%. It looks like a chart of OSes derived from HTTP_USER_AGENT, so they probably just included everything. They even list Nintendo DS!
People want to cling to the K/T extinction being a mystery for some reason. It just isn't anymore.
"There appears to have been some mass extinctions around this time. A huge asteroid impact could cause that. Here's evidence of a huge asteroid impact around that time. Case closed."
It seems that in some branches of science, we accept "plausible" as "proven". Sure there may be some pretty good evidence that an asteroid impact caused mass extinctions, but are there any other explanations? Here's a case where someone points out some data inconsistent with the prevalent theory, and we say, "it doesn't NECESSARILY disprove the theory, so we can ignore it". In other branches of science, we would strive for, "we can ABSOLUTELY explain this data", or we'd have to change or qualify the theory.
The wavelength of the high frequency waves your generating in the cable is going to be on the order of... 10^-12m (I don't have a calculator in front of me, I might be off by some orders of magnitude). So, you would want to have cables that were some integer (or half-integer?) multiple of your wavelength to take care of harmonics, right? How the hell can you do that on a 20m cable?
I only have a B.S. in Physics, but I have to question your wavelength calculation. The waves travel at nearly c, so a 1GHz wave would then have a wavelength of nearly 30 cm, wouldn't it? Still, I agree in that the wavelength is small enough that cable length shouldn't matter unless it's a very short run. Also, for a CONNECTED cable, I have to wonder how much signal reflection you're going to see.
You can't mix the PUMA with pedestrians and you sure as heck can't put it in real traffic. You need to create 'small back roads' to link homes to supermarkets/mini-malls/shopping plazas.
Maybe that will be part of Obama's "infrastructure" he keeps going on about.
Maybe it was corrected after your post, but the original post I am looking at only contains one use of the word "their" - used correctly - and no uses of the word "there".
You don't get gov't money or tax breaks (which politicians see as the same thing) without strings attached. I think the concern that this might be a step towards a state-controlled press is something to consider. And what problem is this supposed to solve? The fact that some newspapers are going out of business? Why does the government need to get involved in that problem at all?
But I really don't want to think what would happen to the battery bank from a wind turbine or solar panels in this sort of situation.
I think the main problem is with long wires acting like an antenna and picking up a significant potential. I don't know what frequency EM we're talking about, but it's possible it wouldn't affect small devices or even smaller scale power systems where the longest wires are the ones running up a residential windmill tower.
When the chips are down and they need to find the most likely spots to drill - what kind of geology do they use? Flood geology, or mainstream? Which one actually delivers the goods?
I thought they mostly used seismology, and that is more based on experience with what kinds and formations of rock tend to contain oil, and not so much any theory of it's origins. There is an alternative "abiotic" theory of oil generation that really has nothing to do with evolution or creationism, AFAIK.
I would say that your concerns about the use of the word "controversial" are controversial, but I don't think enough people share your view to justify using that term.:P
Blowhards like Limbaugh and Hannity have nothing whatsoever to do with it. Although it is telling that you would resort to accusing anyone who voices any criticism to be automatically associated with the most vile of opportunistic ass-clowns whose only role is to make things worse for everyone by doing their damnest to appeal to most base instincts of their listeners and to ensure that no informed debate takes place.
"Blowhard"? "ass-clown"? That hardly sounds like "informed debate".
I wonder what kind of clearance this sort of balloon experiment requires.
FTA:
"However, when we launched at 9.10am on that morning the critical point for the experiment was to see if the balloon would make it past 10,000m, or 30,000ft, which is the altitude that commercial airliners fly at."
That statement suggests to me that they didn't have any clearance.
The summary isn't saying that 47% of the earth is covered in water. It is a poorly worded attempt at saying that 15% of the respondents got the answer right, while 47% got the answer approximately write.
Thanks for explaining that. I was afraid we were in the middle of a global drying crisis that I hadn't heard about.
Ok, so, I don't know much about the laws, but it is illegal, isn't it?
I have no idea whether it's legal, but here's one concern I have: Did they write the virus themselves or did they just download it? If they just downloaded it, how can they be sure they know exactly what it's doing?
I can't wait until I can change the wallpaper that is on my real walls without having to hang new wallpaper. Being able to dynamically display things (from, say the tv/computer) on the walls around the room would be spiffy too.
This is the case for most government programs. Social Security, considered as a mutual fund (it isn't any different than a mutual fund that picks T-bills to invest in) has about 1/10th the cost of a privately run mutual fund of the same kind.
Your SS payments are not invested, they are spent. A mutual fund is managed by choosing investments. The only "management" cost of SS is collection and (re)distribution.
I can think of a hundred reasons someone would want this to fail. I was thinking about that yesterday when I learned about this launch and what it would be doing. What better solid proof that Co2 is causing an issue.
So it's a conspiracy, huh? Couldn't the global warming skeptics just as easily claim that it failed because powerful interests (like the current administration) were afraid the data might DIS-prove global warming?
I tend to disregard conspiracy theories as paranoia, but then I always remember what Johnny Fever said on WKRP: "When they're out to get you, paranoid is just common sense!" (or something like that).
Slashdot Mirror
Still not random.
Yes it is.
I don't think you can say that it has been proven either way scientifically. Classical mechanics assumes everything is deterministic. Quantum doesn't make that assumption, but it doesn't preclude determinism either.
Isn't it rather scary that while scientists are getting excited over this 47 million year old fossil that there are fossils in Congress who will swear on a stack of Bibles that the earth is only 6000 years old and that evolution is bunk.
Frankly, I find it more frightening that most of our leaders and most of the population in general have all bought into the idea that morality is just convention and that there is no higher power to answer to. I suppose they think we're more "evolved" now.
You clearly have a more varied diet than most :-)
Most slashdotters, maybe. We don't all live off Cheese Poofs and Mountain Dew. Look at the produce section of the grocery store - they don't stock that stuff just to let it rot (like I do when I buy vegetables).
Joe: Hey! That's like a whole day. I could get like 5 sessions of Fighter Ultra Captain Kain in that time!
OMG. I just realized that I'm Joe.
Should we really be including both Windows and iPhone in the same OS usage chart?
Don't complain - including "handheld" OSes may have helped linux to reach 1%. It looks like a chart of OSes derived from HTTP_USER_AGENT, so they probably just included everything. They even list Nintendo DS!
Which makes this significantly less scary than your average amoeba.
You say that like amoebas aren't scary. Have you ever traveled in a 3rd world country?
People want to cling to the K/T extinction being a mystery for some reason. It just isn't anymore.
"There appears to have been some mass extinctions around this time. A huge asteroid impact could cause that. Here's evidence of a huge asteroid impact around that time. Case closed."
It seems that in some branches of science, we accept "plausible" as "proven". Sure there may be some pretty good evidence that an asteroid impact caused mass extinctions, but are there any other explanations? Here's a case where someone points out some data inconsistent with the prevalent theory, and we say, "it doesn't NECESSARILY disprove the theory, so we can ignore it". In other branches of science, we would strive for, "we can ABSOLUTELY explain this data", or we'd have to change or qualify the theory.
Unfortunately in general health statistics, the US is at or near the bottom of the industrialized world and below some number of third-world countries
What kind of health statistics? I'm wondering if is more due to quality of care or lifestyle.
The wavelength of the high frequency waves your generating in the cable is going to be on the order of ... 10^-12m (I don't have a calculator in front of me, I might be off by some orders of magnitude). So, you would want to have cables that were some integer (or half-integer?) multiple of your wavelength to take care of harmonics, right? How the hell can you do that on a 20m cable?
I only have a B.S. in Physics, but I have to question your wavelength calculation. The waves travel at nearly c, so a 1GHz wave would then have a wavelength of nearly 30 cm, wouldn't it? Still, I agree in that the wavelength is small enough that cable length shouldn't matter unless it's a very short run. Also, for a CONNECTED cable, I have to wonder how much signal reflection you're going to see.
Pretty damn daring to explore an economic/philosophy in a video game.
In what sense is it daring? Seriously, how many potential buyers would really care about the game's view of objectivism?
You can't mix the PUMA with pedestrians and you sure as heck can't put it in real traffic. You need to create 'small back roads' to link homes to supermarkets/mini-malls/shopping plazas.
Maybe that will be part of Obama's "infrastructure" he keeps going on about.
And then you call the Pope a Nazi. Wow, just wow!
Yes, it's funny how irrational some people get when attacking religion for being irrational.
"There" ?
Maybe it was corrected after your post, but the original post I am looking at only contains one use of the word "their" - used correctly - and no uses of the word "there".
You don't get gov't money or tax breaks (which politicians see as the same thing) without strings attached. I think the concern that this might be a step towards a state-controlled press is something to consider. And what problem is this supposed to solve? The fact that some newspapers are going out of business? Why does the government need to get involved in that problem at all?
But I really don't want to think what would happen to the battery bank from a wind turbine or solar panels in this sort of situation.
I think the main problem is with long wires acting like an antenna and picking up a significant potential. I don't know what frequency EM we're talking about, but it's possible it wouldn't affect small devices or even smaller scale power systems where the longest wires are the ones running up a residential windmill tower.
Corporate thugs from Hanes will be waiting for you when you touch down.
When the chips are down and they need to find the most likely spots to drill - what kind of geology do they use? Flood geology, or mainstream? Which one actually delivers the goods?
I thought they mostly used seismology, and that is more based on experience with what kinds and formations of rock tend to contain oil, and not so much any theory of it's origins. There is an alternative "abiotic" theory of oil generation that really has nothing to do with evolution or creationism, AFAIK.
I would say that your concerns about the use of the word "controversial" are controversial, but I don't think enough people share your view to justify using that term. :P
Blowhards like Limbaugh and Hannity have nothing whatsoever to do with it. Although it is telling that you would resort to accusing anyone who voices any criticism to be automatically associated with the most vile of opportunistic ass-clowns whose only role is to make things worse for everyone by doing their damnest to appeal to most base instincts of their listeners and to ensure that no informed debate takes place.
"Blowhard"? "ass-clown"? That hardly sounds like "informed debate".
I wonder what kind of clearance this sort of balloon experiment requires.
FTA:
"However, when we launched at 9.10am on that morning the critical point for the experiment was to see if the balloon would make it past 10,000m, or 30,000ft, which is the altitude that commercial airliners fly at."
That statement suggests to me that they didn't have any clearance.
The summary isn't saying that 47% of the earth is covered in water. It is a poorly worded attempt at saying that 15% of the respondents got the answer right, while 47% got the answer approximately write.
Thanks for explaining that. I was afraid we were in the middle of a global drying crisis that I hadn't heard about.
Ok, so, I don't know much about the laws, but it is illegal, isn't it?
I have no idea whether it's legal, but here's one concern I have: Did they write the virus themselves or did they just download it? If they just downloaded it, how can they be sure they know exactly what it's doing?
I can't wait until I can change the wallpaper that is on my real walls without having to hang new wallpaper. Being able to dynamically display things (from, say the tv/computer) on the walls around the room would be spiffy too.
It's not so great. Read "carpet bugs"
This is the case for most government programs. Social Security, considered as a mutual fund (it isn't any different than a mutual fund that picks T-bills to invest in) has about 1/10th the cost of a privately run mutual fund of the same kind.
Your SS payments are not invested, they are spent. A mutual fund is managed by choosing investments. The only "management" cost of SS is collection and (re)distribution.
I can think of a hundred reasons someone would want this to fail. I was thinking about that yesterday when I learned about this launch and what it would be doing. What better solid proof that Co2 is causing an issue.
So it's a conspiracy, huh? Couldn't the global warming skeptics just as easily claim that it failed because powerful interests (like the current administration) were afraid the data might DIS-prove global warming?
I tend to disregard conspiracy theories as paranoia, but then I always remember what Johnny Fever said on WKRP: "When they're out to get you, paranoid is just common sense!" (or something like that).